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And it's taken over 10 years and our military are still dodging bullets in Afghanistan. We are finally retreating. Maybe! When you can't "win hearts and minds" by murdering their families after 10 years I doubt any military assault upon American families will "win hearts and minds" either. Street to street combat is the toughest and most dangerous war for any military to fight. When you can't tell the combatants from the non-combatants the military ends up killing a lot of non-combatants.
Nope, if our politicians ever made the mistake of sending out troops against their own families in the streets of America killing a lot of innocent civilians like they do in other countries...they'd eventually loose...just like they lost in Vietnam and are now losing in the Middle East. They are just struggling with the propaganda that it wasn't a defeat...just like in Vietnam...but we WERE defeated in Vietnam. And now we are being defeated in the Middle East...they are now moving to easier targets in Africa. We'd never go after N.Korea or China. If the US went to war with China, they'd have to get a loan from China to do it....and use high tech weapons that are made in China.
Why do you think our government is so cowed by all those Tea baggers with guns...and various militia all over the country? If you don't think the government has been cowed, both the Republicans and the Democrats, just look at how they managed to change the Republican party and even kept the Democrat party from acting like Democrats. Look at how ineffective and wimpy Obama has been...until the gun issue broke out. After all, these shootings have a lot of Americans upset and Obama will play on that for all he can. And he is really ticking off gun owners. I suspect that Democrats will be the likely targets of these people. And I suspect the Republicans won't mind a bit.
The Republican party doesn't dare come out strong on gun control because they know, along with all the money they get from NRA lobby groups, that there are an awful lot of gun owners in America. As long as they play up their support for gun owners...it is likely that the really radical gun owners, militia, will not have evil thoughts about the Republicans..the Democrats will get all the flack.
The government/military are good at picking on small groups or individuals but not so good at picking on people that are willing to fight back..like insurgents that just keep coming and coming (over 10 years now). Sure they have a lot of high tech sophisticated weapons...and they may not hesitate in using them against small groups of people...but if the whole nation was fighting street to street, door to door combat...we don't even have the manpower in police or military to handle a massive armed rebellion. The police can't even handle many police matters now because of the cut backs. All the government can do is create propaganda like a billion rounds of hollow point ammo going to certain government agencies. They are trying to scare people out of getting ideas of rebellious nature. And how many US soldiers will stand for going to war against their own country? Especially when many of them see what slime-buckets their politicians are...I'd bet a lot would go awol...go to Canada or Mexico if they were turned on the American people. It wouldn't take long for those slime-buckets to fall.
I hope it never happens but if it does...it will most likely happen all over the US fairly simultaneously by many thousands in many cities which will overwhelm the government's current ability to stop it. And that is just the scenario that the government is worried about...which is why they are trying so hard to get everyone to give up their weapons. Once the government succeeds at that they have no obstacle in their way of completely oppressing us all. ☮ ☮ ☮ ☯
David- your letter to Global (the one about Thom) had me doubled over 'til my sides ached and cracking up so hard, I almost wet my drawers. And I'm thinking: this old hippie gal better start wearing "Depends" when she reads your entries, because... (switching to "first person"...) I've gotta lotta laughing to do!! (Get it?) - Alice I.W.
I'm trying to figure out how to delete this duplicate post...
David- you are MY kind of warrior, and a kindred spirit. Not all of us peons are pushovers and suckers. Let's keep giving 'em hell! - Aliceinwonderland
Aliceinwonderland: I'm glad that you are not letting them get away with it as well. I noticed a Chinese lady picking out oranges at the same time I was and had a bag of them too. After I was leaving the store I noticed that Chinese lady almost out the door but looking very puzzled as she was holding the oranges in one hand and looking at her receipt in the other. I told her that they were charging 70 cents a pound for the oranges and I just didn't buy them. She went back and demanded she pay only 29 cent per pound and succeeded...different cashier. But I probably could have gotten them for 29 cents too but I reasoned....now, at least, they will have to go through extra work to put the oranges back. I'm glad other people are noticing that this is happening. Thanks for your story.
I'm a Socialist leaning Independent Old Blue, but I still see a clear difference between the Democrats and Teapublicans. Check the congressional voting records and you will see what I mean. However I do agree that big money has purchased a vast chunk of what we call Democracy. To be honest, I look at it this way, Fox doesn't need any of our help bashing the Democrats, and I damn well refuse to give them any of mine.
Excellent idea. Contact your representatives - anyone who'll listen. Start a petition. Spread the word!
The FEC has done nothing about any of the voter suppression leading up to the 2012 elections. Why should they change now?
PD says "I had problems with a grocery store today (and it is a frequent occurrence at these grocery stores) where they mark something down but when they ring up your bill they ring it up as the original value."
The last time you mentioned this it really tweaked me, because I've griped about it for years and years. On rare occasions there have been articles written about this dirty little trick of theirs, and reports about it broadcast on TV. And it's bloody infuriating. I completely agree with your assertion that it is a deliberate ploy to rip us off at the checkstand.
Like you PD, I never let 'em get away with it. I add up everything religiously as I collect items in my cart. The last time this occurred, I retrieved three bucks I'd been overcharged. Even if the discrepancy is less than a buck, I make sure they correct their "mistake". It was worst in the late 1990s when I ran into this problem virtually every week; now it's much less frequent, altho it still isn't that unusual. I've shopped at four or five grocery stores around here. As I recall, Walmart and Safeway were the worst. (I remember yelling at one of Safeway's managers because I was so fed up with this stupid game of theirs.) Grocery Outlet has always been most honest in these transactions; their discrepancies are so rare that I cut them more slack, shrugging it off as legitimate human error.
What blows my mind about your recent experience is the response you got. Never, in all such run-ins with grocery store personnel, have I been refused compensation once I've proven my case. Next time this happens to you PD, don't back down! Make 'em sell you those groceries at the sale price advertised. We not only stand up for ourselves in these situations, we are consumer activists, calling their bluff. It's a sleazy game and they've no right to steal from us, which is precisely what they are doing. Being the confrontational type that I am, I've no problem asserting myself, and in the process, blowing their cover. It beats shoplifting for revenge. - Aliceinwonderland
The Republican Party may be good at gerrymandering and stealing elections, but just how good are they at controlling the Teafrankenstein problem that aint going away?
Because they're getting nervous, the Kochs/AFP, the Chamber of Commerce, and a few financial big heads have recently given Cantor orders to hit the kill switch on ole Frankie for the next three months, this regarding the debt-ceiling hostage strategy.
The Kochs at some point are going to lose control of the monster they've helped create. This will happen when Tea Party members start to decipher the populist lies behind the Tea Party movement. There's the one about shrinking Govt., which is the rich man's code for deregulation so he can pollute and poison for profit, commit unimpeded financial frauds against the middle class, with the Social Security Trust Fund being the last thing worth stealing. Remember Paul Ryan's road map to hell, privatize Social Security by creating personal accounts with stocks and bonds?
Then there's the one about cutting the rich man's tax rates to create jobs, which really means cut off revenue to a point where austerity politics becomes possible, a point at which union busting and economic desperation creates a feudal like shift away from progressive prosperity and secures the tyrannical power of big money.
It won't be the Democratic Party the Teafrankenstein monster is about to destroy and in my opinion there isn't a damn thing the Kochs or Cantor can do to stop it!
2950, Don't you think that our beloved Democratic Party is just a teeny bit complicit in advancing the interests of the uber-rich? Think "Blue Dog Democrat" for starters ....
Hey Ken,
Is that your biplane in the photo? And is it true that you flew that thing in Nam and shot down 18 Migs? Jesus Ken, I stand in absolute awe! Sieg Heil!
Mr. Ware says "I hate to sound sexist but your reply is based primarily on you[r] feel good female hormones and bitch response mechanism".
Gee Ken, that's so eloquent. You sure have a way with words.
Damn right I'm an old hippie. Proud of it, I might add. At least us activist types, "armchair warriors" and "cowards" don't have blood on our hands (!); the blood of people who never harmed or threatened us, or had anything to do with us!
Our military has a long, sordid history of attacking people whose only "crime" was simply bad luck, being in the right place at the wrong time, winding up in the path of this Almighty Empire's thieving rampage by no fault of their own. The Cold War was a promotional device, invented by the Military Industrial Complex and its allies as a gimmick to justify the unjustifiable, thus brainwashing the "masses" into believing we must have perpetual war to be "safe" and "free" from the Evil Communists. You and your comrades were duped and used in the prime of youth by the war machine, serving an unholy agenda that had nothing remotely to do with democracy.
Since you claim to be so into facts Mr. Ware, perhaps you should consider that nuclear weapons are the U.S.'s gift to the world. It is our country who created this problem in the first place; not the "commies". Thanks to this noble innovation, we are so much safer and more civilized now; right? (Not.) And even though we possess more of these weapons of mass destruction than anyone else, our leaders arrogantly assume they have the right to dictate to other countries who can and can't have them. So much of what you say on this subject comes from the belief that it is our job to police the entire world. It is a premise I and like-minded souls reject without apology.
I have no intention of getting sucked into a tedious ongoing debate with you about the Cold War. I'll leave that to Thom Hartmann. Thom is a walking, breathing encyclopedia, probably with more knowledge of history than the rest of us stacked together. I've no doubt Thom's assessment of the Cold War, with his vast knowledge of history, would be more aligned with Palindromedary's, No Fraud's, DeAnneMarc's and my own.
Beyond all that, your condescending attitude towards women in general has been apparent to me almost from the start, when I first became engaged with this blog two months ago. You not only sound sexist; you ARE sexist. And hostile and angry, and a bully. Laugh all you want; I need only consider the source. - Aliceinwonderland
Calm down Buddy!
You fly off the handle too quickly. Personally you are way out of line. Calling Alice a bitch is unacceptable. You owe her an immediate apology. That kind of language is intolerable.
Secondly, I deeply apologize for the few people who showed up at the airport and spit on our returning troops from Vietnam. They spit on my father when they spit on any other soldier. I remember watching this spectacle in horror with my mother at the time and being at a complete loss of words to explain it. Take my word for it, this in no way expressed the general overall opinion of other "armchair observers" that I'm aware of. In fact, everyone I know on this side of the pond wanted nothing more than to save the soldiers sacrificing everything in Nam. I, and others like me, wanted to hug everyone who returned and welcome them home with honor.
You are also quite out of line when you call protesters cowards. Oh yes, its easy for someone with firearms to bully peaceful protesters; but, before you ridicule them let me see you face a wall of armed guards without a weapon and armed only with conviction, a sign, and a smile. Let me see you get your head spit in two for your beliefs and return for more immediately after your wounds heal. Let me see you do what Abbots master did and apologize profusely rather than engage an antagonist that you can surely defeat; and, then I will accept your opinion without question. The fact of the matter is that despite the sacrifice of you and the other military personnel in Vietnam it was the sacrifice of the protesters here that brought an end to that war. Here's a little news coverage from that period that featured not only protesters but veterans as well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KuvjRTQo2U
If a man of the character of John Kerry, a Vietnam war hero, has the passion and conviction to publicly admit the war is a mistake and demand immediate withdrawal do you really think people are perceiving your antagonistic rants as respectable?
If you want to maintain my respect, please apologize for calling Alice a bitch. I consider you a friend and her as well. However, one minimal quality I expect from my friends are that they are at least a Gentlemen.
Thank You!
Thank you, Ken!
Sorry ken, but Thom IS a tool of the left. He follows lock step with the propaganda message. Just pay attention to the Obama agenda and on the media issues -- they all rally to the cause. He plays the race card all the time and that has been the primary strategy for the last four years and it is pathetic but effective.
Yes,o f course they should be prosecuted as should Alan Greenspa&, the people who dreamt up "derivatives" and NIST who avoided a real analysis of the evidence of WTC steel. NIST's 3-year $20,000,000 cover-up of the crime must be outed and someone is responsible for the termite and explosives at the WTC site and they must be prosecuted.
So when does "Swearing an Oath" make it so sanctified and unbreakable? Our damn Presidents swear oaths to defend the Constitution of the United States and all they do is act like war criminals and mass murderers all very much against the Constitution of the United States. Bush said that the Constitution was "just a piece of paper".
If you swear an oath to criminals you don't need to honor those oaths. The Nuremberg Trials established that soldiers are not to carry out orders that are not "lawful".
Nixon was a Criminal who abused the office of the United States and, although others may not have been impeached for their criminal deeds, they should have been. Especially Bush2!
If the SS swore oaths to Hitler about committing genocide...if any one of them decided to not honor the oath he took..would that have been breaking an oath to the high office in the German government, in which Hitler reigned, or would it not have been breaking the oath to Hitler himself? I say it in that way so that no one can counter ague that the oaths taken by soldiers are oaths taken to the "office of the President."..the Commander and Chief of the United States of America. If the President is a crook, a war criminal, and all of the chain of command are war criminals, then so what if some soldier "breaks an oath"?
David Abbot: Well said!(especially, the last paragraph of #95). By the way, in referring to your earlier post #62, and your problems with Whole Foods....I had problems with a grocery store today (and it is a frequent occurrence at these grocery stores) where they mark something down but when they ring up your bill they ring it up as the original value. I tried to buy these Naval Oranges that was marked as 29 cents a pound..5 pound limit...so I got 4-3/4 pounds. After the guy rang it up...I looked at the display and it said 70 cents a pound. I told the guy that the sign under these oranges said 29 cents a pound...and he stared at me with a grin and said "I know!" Then I said but you rang it up as 70 cents a pound. He said "I know!" I told him that I didn't want the oranges at 70 cents a pound so he set the bag aside and I didn't get my oranges. I probably should have insisted that he sell them to me at 29 cents a pound. Anyway...the guy says..."It's not my fault!" And I said "yeah, I know...it's management!" He grinned like he agreed with me. This happens all the time at the grocery stores. I believe it is a systematic scam that management is perpetrating on the customers. And most people just don't bother to check what they are actually being charged. This has happened mostly at Safeways and today it was Luckys.
Ok, so when you say something, it's not he said she said. But when I say something it is he said she said. I get it.
You're the one who said cia. I didn't say that. And you're the one who identified the birds.
Alice - I hate to sound sexist but your reply is based primarily on you feel good female hormones and bitch response mechanism. The troops that served under the Commander in Chief were sent there not to protect America, but to stop further aggression from the Communist in China. You actually have no understanding of history. Are you so naive to believe the N. Koreans chose to live under a dictator? If you think the threat of nuclear war was all hype, you really have a limited knowledge of HISTORY. We came to the point of nuclear war when Russia moved ballistic missiles into Cuba in Oct. of 1962.With missiles in Cuba they had a strategic advantage concerning the time it took to launch and strike American cities. The reason they felt compelled to try this is that we had nukes in Europe and we could strike them with nukes and the retaliation time was limited with their nukes on Russian soil. The Nation and the Military were on full alert, but you would have to have an interest of what happened during that time. The Russians believed we would launch a full scale attack against the Mother Land in Russia, since we were the only country to use nukes against the Japanese in 1945. I cannot believe someone with you attitude actually survived the 60's, I really consider the source when I hear your rants. My point was the Military over the decades has kept this country free of foreign invasion, not that our involvement in Vietnam was crucial to our national defense. But, at the time as I have stated the President and his advisors felt losing Vietnam to the Communist could start a domino effect where they might invade other South East Asian countries if Vietnam fell and they had a chance to spread their religion of Communism. Only someone with limited knowledge of the history and of the military and our history as a nation would vent the crap you have spewed on this blog. The men and women who served in the Second World War kept this nation free from dictatorship. But the way you talk you think we are under some dictatorship from our own government. The brave men and women who served in Korea and Vietnam did so under the direction of the Commander in Chief, our president, your opinion of the troops who served in these conflicts is valid, but your account of history and the way you present your opinion is laughable. I do not gratification from people like you, I know I served my country when it called me to duty and that is all the satisfaction and gratification I or others that served in Vietnam need. (3,000,000 American men and women served in Vietnam over an eleven year period) You sound like an aged "hippy activist" from the 1960's as far as I am concerned. The main reason I even bothered to rebut the opinions of others concerning Vietnam, is that you and Abbot stated incorrect information with a lack of knowledge or purposely lied for attention or what other reason you may have had. If you’re going to make comments about something the least you can do is get the facts straight to validate your opinion.
Abbot: Your statement that black Huey's, UH-1 were the primary helicopter used in Asia, flew over the enemy and were not fired on from the N. Vietnamese. The N. Vietnamese fired on any American style helicopter they saw, even the choppers with red crosses on them indicating they were transporting the wounded. The Vietnamese never signed the Geneva Doctrine of War, prohibiting combat troops from firing on Med. aircraft; neither did the N. Korean's. When the CIA used any type of aircraft in Vietnam they used company’s setup to hide their involvement, like Air America to name one. Black Ops Helicopters that were actually painted black did not come into action until the late 1980's. So the information that these Vets saw black choppers fly over and were not shot at seems more like one of those stories where she said, he said, she said situations where stories change from one person to
Aliceinwonderland: Actually, I think you, and perhaps others, are missing the point. I don't advocate an armed rebellion against the government. What I am saying is that just the very idea that so many civilians are so well armed that they could cause quite a havoc with a tyrannical government. That alone would tend to make a potentially tyrannical government not be so tyrannical to begin with. Not only that but I think you all under estimate the power of a well armed citizenry...if one day the tyrannical government tried to do something so horrible that we had no choice but to rebel. What if our tyrannical government did what Hitler did and decided that a certain group of people..perhaps a race of people, were unfit to live and they set up concentration camps and gas houses to murder millions of Americans that didn't fit their liking? Don't say that it cannot happen here because if very well could happen here. Many people around the world during the reign on Nazi Germany, including many Germans, wouldn't believe that something like that could happen in Nazi Germany. They also thought that they were too "modern"...too "civilized".
Global - Sorry to burst your bubble, but my complaint was I have heard this over and over again. The Information Hartmann passes on is not a tool of the left, actually he is one of the few people that I believe has real character and an honorable commentator. You want to hear B.S. listen to Fox entertainment channel, MSNBC or Limbaugh! As far as the 2nd. Amendment goes I think you Republicans and conservatives are full of B.S. The Republicans are not concerned with our rights, their main concern is the rights of the Gun Corporations to continue to spread fear that everyone needs to be well armed, while pulling in billions in cash. I have nothing against owning a handgun or shot gun. I believe thinking that limiting the clip capacity is a Red Herring to get us off the real point of why do we need assault weapons with enough velocity to travel over one mile and still retain their kill power! The civilians that talk about defending themselves against the Government if they tried to become some type of dictatorship are a friggin joke. Our military is not the Syrian Army; it would take just a matter of days for our military to take over every major city in America! So if you’re depending on your AR-15 or any other assault weapon to keep you free, you really have a screw loose. I just didn't want to leave the impression I agreed with you or any other conservative who comments on this blog.
I agree with PhillipHenderson.
In fact, I would say that the Republican Party IS a domestic terrorist organization. I mean, they want to harm women, children, working people, and poor people. Who's left? Who don't they want to harm? They don't want to harm 1% of the America population: the extremely rich. But you know, any country can get along very well without its extremely rich citizens, because extremely rich people do not really contribute anything to a country. But no country can get along without women, children, working people, and poor people. The only logical conclusion that can be drawn is that the republican party is a domestic terrorist organization.
I'm thinking, Guantanimo summercamp for them, with plenty of nice waterboarding! Or maybe just guano, because the republican totem animal is bat_____.
I hate to sound sexist but your reply is based primarily on you feel good female hormones and bitch response mechanism. The troops that served under the Commander in Chief were sent there not to protect America, but to stop further aggression from the Communist in China. You actually have no understanding of history. Are you so naive to believe the N. Koreans chose to live under a dictator? If you think the threat of nuclear war was all hype, you really have a limited knowledge of HISTORY. We came to the point of nuclear war when Russia moved ballistic missiles into Cuba in Oct. of 1962.With missiles in Cuba they had a strategic advantage concerning the time it took to launch and strike American cities. The reason they felt compelled to try this is that we had nukes in Europe and we could strike them with nukes and the retaliation time was limited with their nukes on Russian soil. The Nation and the Military were on full alert, but you would have to have an interest of what happened during that time. The Russians believed we would launch a full scale attack against the Mother Land in Russia, since we were the only country to use nukes against the Japanese in 1945. I cannot believe someone with you attitude actually survived the 60's, I really consider the source when I hear your rants. My point was the Military over the decades has kept this country free of foreign invasion, not that our involvement in Vietnam was crucial to our national defense. But, at the time as I have stated the President and his advisors felt losing Vietnam to the Communist could start a domino effect where they might invade other South East Asian countries if Vietnam fell and they had a chance to spread their religion of Communism. Only someone with limited knowledge of the history and of the military and our history as a nation would vent the crap you have spewed on this blog. The men and women who served in the Second World War kept this nation free from dictatorship. But the way you talk you think we are under some dictatorship from our own government. The brave men and women who served in Korea and Vietnam did so under the direction of the Commander in Chief, our president, your opinion of the troops who served in these conflicts is valid, but your account of history and the way you present your opinion is laughable. I do not get my gratification from people like you, I know I served my country when it called me to duty and that is all the satisfaction and gratification I or others that served in Vietnam need. (3,000,000 American men and women served in Vietnam over an eleven year period) You sound like an aged "hippy activist" from the 1960's as far as I am concerned. The main reason I even bothered to rebut the opinions of others concerning Vietnam, is that you and Abbot stated incorrect information with a lack of knowledge or purposely lied for attention or what other reason you may have had. If you’re going to make comments about something the least you can do is get the facts straight to validate your opinion.
Abbot: Your statement that black Huey's, UH-1 were the primary helicopter used in Asia, flew over the enemy and were not fired on from the N. Vietnamese. The N. Vietnamese fired on any American style helicopter they saw, even the choppers with red crosses on them indicating they were transporting the wounded. The Vietnamese never signed the Geneva Doctrine of War, prohibiting combat troops from firing on Med. aircraft; neither did the N. Korean's. When the CIA used any type of aircraft in Vietnam they used company’s setup to hide their involvement, like Air America to name one. Black Ops Helicopters that were actually painted black did not come into action until the late 1980's. So the information that these Vets saw black choppers fly over and were not shot at seems more like one of those stories where she said, he said, she said situations where stories change from one person to another, like the kids in grammar school play in their classroom where the teacher is trying to show how stories change from the original info as they are passed from person to another. A little research would prevent you from sounding a little silly!